Bailout Watch 118: Protectionism is Alive and Well in Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Paper has rightly taken local state Supreme Court judges to task for commandeering the northern part of a Columbus Park public parking lot for their own private use. The paper also did the public a service by revealing that the judges’ contention that they needed the space for “security” was a crock. Turns out that roughly 15 of the 30 drivers using the private lot are secretaries, law clerks, court aides and other non-judges. But the next part of the newspaper’s campaign raises uncomfortable (if not for Phil Ressler) questions about the political climate vis a vis a Detroit Bailout. To wit: “It’s un-American!” the Paper proclaims. “On Tuesday and Wednesday, 15 out of 16 cars parked in the judges’ temporary lot were made by non-American companies. The sole American car on the Cadman Plaza side of 360 Adams St. courthouse was a Ford Mustang convertible. And speaking of Ken Elias’ Death Watch prediction that ChryCo and GM will merge, check out off-hand remark regarding Chrysler’s fate. “Looking out over the lot on Wednesday afternoon, a court officer laughed when he realized that more than 93 percent of the cars were not from the Detroit Big Three (soon to be Big Two). ‘I guess that’s the state of America now — we buy foreign,’ said the guard, who would not give his name.” [thanks to thenewspaper.com for the link]
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Toxicroach- I didn't mention the flag. Nor patriotism. None of that. My argument is one of self-interest and it applies, in this case, to consumers in any auto-producing country. I'm not lucky. I simply chose my American cars from among the subset of them that were competitive in the class I was buying. I never had to replace an engine, nor a transmission. I've never had a significant system or subsystem failure on a D3 vehicle, nor do I find this surprising. It's what I expected and got well into six figures of mileage each one, but I chose carefully. The economic leverage of the D3 automaking jobs concentrated in the industrial mid-west exceeds the ripple effect of the transplants in the south. If 3 - 4 million units were transferred by the market back to the D3, the damage to southern transplants would be more than offset by the expansion of employment by the D3, including in the south. In any case, the national economy doesn't distinguish between South Carolina and Michigan or Missouri. The D3 could pick up plants and workers left after transplants shrink. It's true that the D3 have given us plenty of reason to feel hostility toward them. They have mismanaged their businesses, across the board. They've missed market trends others anticipated. They cost-managed many products into mediocrity or worse. They allowed once-great marketing expertise to atrophy to the point of caricature. They've destroyed vast volumes of shareholder value. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Which is not to say these same mismanaged companies haven't produced some competitive products. At the end of the day, every person who got burned can hold a grudge and pay for that emotional satisfaction in higher crime, reduced services, elevated social disorder, higher interest rates, higher taxes and polarizing distribution of wealth, or you can put that aside and contribute to underpinning the middle class in our economy by buying something that's both domestic *and* competitive. Yes, you'll have to take that chance that the Malibu will perform at 100,000 miles. If it doesn't, there may be a cost. Well, point is you're going to pay the other way too. At no point have I advocated "supporting American mediocrity." I haven't done that nor am I asking you to either. We agree there is no reason domestic automotive manufacturers have to be incompetent. But there are reasons they will be hobbled by some cost disparities that have to be mitigated. The right talent pool can revive this sector for the US. Phil
Fair enough Phil, sorry about putting words in your mouth. I still think pinning social disorder on the transplants is a reach. Crime has been trending downward pretty hard during the D3's fall, which makes your case fairly hard to make on that point. I don't think they bear any relation to each other really, but on the face of it that allegation is pretty hard to make stuck. Sure, the rust belt is kinda shitty and bound to get worse. On the other hand, I doubt Alabama, with one of the lowest median incomes in the country, hasn't benefited enormously from the Toyota facility there. And since the national economy doesn't distinguish between regions, why can't I reverse your argument and say that the transplants will pick up factories and workers from the D3 when they shrink? If this is really about the middle class, why are you rooting for all the transplant workers, who make good wages and benefits by any standard, to see their factories get shut down? I'm really not seeing a legitimate reason to favor domestic workers over transplant workers, unless you're simply rooting for the industrial midwest out of a sense of regionalism. Finally, we've each had our own experiences with various brands. But each of our stories is just an anecdote; the market share and reliability reports indicate that you're story is rarer than mine. Once burned, twice shy. You're not going to hook people into buying a 20,000 product they aren't comfortable with because the same guys who are guilty of all charges finally makes a car that isn't obviously crap. The domestics seem to be the only companies on earth that can behave as badly as they have for as long as they have and still have apologists who think everyone should flock back to their products as soon as they release a few decent cars.
"...not make it unofficial policy to shaft people on their warranties as much as you can." Hear Hear!!!!! Huzzah and Hosannah!!!!!
"Is any Lexus or Audi really worth the cost of not buying an equivalent Cadillac?" Yep. Sorry, but they are. Cadillac makes ONE reasonably world competitive product, the new CTS. Lincoln makes zero, and those are our only domestic choices. I don't like the CTS. I will not buy a car I don't like to support one line worker over another, or to fictionally make Detroit crime rates go down. I work hard to earn my money. Nobody is going to step in and subsidize me so that some foreigner doesn't take my job from me. If an American company makes a product that is better than anything else in the world, I'm more than happy to buy it. If not, I'll buy it from the country that does it best. This is a global market, and every car company has just as much of a right to compete for my dollars. Car buying isn't some sort of "protect America" charity.